Monorail vehicles and systems are used for a variety of purposes and have become considerable importance in the goods-handling field.
For example, an endless main stretch of a monorail track may be provided in a factory, storage or distribution center and can have a large number of spurs leading to and away from the main track. These spurs may run to processing, manufacturing, treatment or storage stations and it is desirable to provide vehicles which permit goods to be carried from one station to another, i.e. from one spur onto the main stretch and then onto another spur.
A typical monorail vehicle for this purpose can be a rack from which the goods can be suspended, i.e. having a bar from which garments can be supported by hangers of conventional design.
Frequently it is necessary or desirable to connect several vehicles of this type together, i.e. to couple two or more racks into a train for joint displacement of the racks. It is also desirable to permit a motorized vehicle or tractor displaceable along the track to be coupled to a goods-carrying vehicle so as to enable the same to be displaced from one station to another.
The invention is principally concerned with coupling devices for this purpose.
Monorail vehicles frequently are provided with rollers which ride along the upper surface of the rail and have arms, brackets or suspenders hanging down from these rollers to support the load. In the case of a motorized vehicle, this load can be the tractor housing and body and can include an electric motor, a battery for powering same if the motor is not driven by electric current, picked up from a rail paralelling the track, and one or more drive wheels connected to the roller and frictionally or otherwise engaging the track.
The wheel means supporting the tractor or other vehicles upon the monorail track can be described as a dolly or bogie and generally comprises a support to which the hanger or suspender is attached and on which one or more wheels are journaled.
Conventional coupling devices for the purposes described are usually fixed, i.e. one or more vehicles can be connected together upon assembly of the system and then cannot be decoupled or detached from one another without time-consuming operations. Furthermore, systems which allow coupling and decoupling and known in the art have invariably been extremely complex and/or difficult to manipulate or operate.